Happenings

Oh Life. You're a funny thing. You lull people into complacency and deliver occasional sucker punches, you offer up peace, love, and harmony and counter it with jolts of drama, trauma, and loss. You put friends in our lives and stitch up rifts and then new ones open in a place we haven't even paid any attention to before. You are the proverbial roller coaster, and we hang on tight and hope the safety bar was latched correctly, and by someone who knew what He was doing before He set the ride in motion.

There have been lots of ups and downs lately. Not just in my life but in those of people I care about. But when I examine the patchwork of people, circumstances, and events that make up the day to day, I'm struck by the way the good outweighs the bad, even when the bad is more immediate and determined.

The good is quieter. It comes in the form of books you can't put down, conversations you don't want to end, helpless laughter, deep and well-earned sleep. For me, it often comes on the slap-pat bare feet of a mischievous, towheaded angel, in spontaneous hugs from a relentlessly and dazzlingly growing boy. In the comfortable companionship of a friend I'm lucky enough to call my husband. In years-long friendships proven fireproof and indestructible.

So in the face of a dead car, a full plate, and a near-empty reserve of patience, I really don't have all that much to complain about. It's been my experience that life often pays back what it takes, and then some.

The summer is going by faster than I could have imagined at the beginning of it. As of tomorrow, there is a month until Alex goes back to school. As a second grader. Grade 2. Grade the Second. I don't know why it's suddenly struck me that I have a kid who's the age I was when we first moved to Birmingham, or when my clear and consistent memories begin. But it's creepy.

He's invited to a birthday party this weekend that seems to be some sort of dress-up affair. Not suits and Sunday best, but Star Wars costumes. It's the antithesis of Alex. He's going to hate it. Of course I haven't TOLD him he's going to hate it, but mark my words: He's going to hate it. He hated it when he had to wear a headband at Vacation Bible School. Said it was "embarrassing." All the other kids were wearing them. Didn't matter. I've told him he's going to pretend to like this birthday party even if they make him wear a Darth Vader mask and do the breathing thing. Pretending to like things we hate ... isn't that 82% of being a grown-up? Just me? Shh, I'd rather not know that.

My car has committed suicide. Well, it's hanging on by a thread, but I can't drive it without fear that the engine is going to burst into flames and I'll have to douse it with the half-drunk can of Diet Dr Pepper that always rides shotgun.

Katherine is Katherine, charming and maddening as all 2-year-olds are contractually obligated to be in equal measure. She is a nudist. She is a temperamental diva. She is a tomboy who likes to wear "pwetty dwesses." She is my shadow, my biggest fan and my harshest critic. She spills her bowl of Goldfish and it must have been something I did. She trips from across the room and why the hell didn't I catch her? That kind of thing. But she's also affectionate as can be, generous with big wet smacking kisses on the lips and tree-frog hugs and cuddles. Working on the laptop, I have perfected the art of typing while my left elbow is immobile, because that's where she settles in. What's personal space? I think I used to know. God, I love her.

Our trip to Destin with the Texas family was wonderful, and just what I needed to untangle the mess that my brain had become in the preceding weeks. You can't sit on a balcony 17 stories up from the ocean while the sun comes up on one side of you and a rainbow sweeps the sky on the other, feeling like the only person awake in the world, and not absorb some of that peace. And take it with you. The kids loved being together, looking for fish in the ocean, riding Boogie boards, catching sand crabs at night with their little headlamps, digging holes and burying the coolest uncle in the world in a shallow grave, and of course playing lots and lots of Nintendo DS (we are an electronically inclined bunch). The grown-ups (and who thought we young parents would ever be included in that category?) loved watching the kids have fun, enjoying the occasional (yes, what?) adult beverage and lots of good food, playing board games, and making fun of HGTV. I would say "and relaxing," but between us we had five kids including two 2-year-olds ... 'nuff said. But there was enough relaxation in the between times to make it perfect. I was remade.

Which is perhaps why I'm not a mess of personified anxiety right now. But I won't examine that too closely, because I have a feeling I could become such a thing if I put my mind to it.